Hustle & Flow: A critical student and teacher-generated framework for re-authoring a representation of Black masculinity

This article describes the formation and enactment of a student and teacher-generated framework for re-authoring a troubling representation of Black masculinity in a popular culture narrative. This data-driven framework highlights the ways students and teacher provided a means for literacies to serve students' desire to re-author images and words they found problematic in the texts they are most drawn to, in addition to fostering methods of critical consciousness, and empowerment. This work provides important recommendations for bridging the divide between in- and out-of-school literacy teaching/learning contexts in several ways. First, it presents research on literacies, multimodalities, and youth to promote reflective practice and professional development in this area. Second, it explains the context for this work and bridges research on literacy with literacy practice in an after-school program. Third, it explains a co-constructed framework for engaging a problematic representation of Black masculinity in a popular culture narrative. Lastly, it presents a discussion of the importance of using popular culture narratives in literacy work, particularly with marginalized youth, both in and outside of schools. This framework provides an account of the ways so-called disengaged students co-devised opportunities to use literacy practices to centralize themselves through the social function of re-authorship.